The new name of the Jags' stadium?

A more lucrative deal is expected before the season begins, the team says.

Vito Stellino

There's a good chance that the Jaguars will have a new, long-term naming rights and sponsorship deal for Jacksonville Municipal Stadium in place before the start of the football season, the team's chief financial officer said Wednesday.

"We've got several companies who have significant interest, and there's a good chance we'll get something done," Bill Prescott said.

The deal would be worth $4 million to $5 million a year, Prescott said.

The expired 10-year contract with Alltel Corp. was for $620,000 a year.

The Jaguars would have to split the naming-rights portion of the deal with the city, which owns the stadium, but the team would keep all the sponsorship money in the deal, which would likely be more than half of the total package.

Susie Wiles, spokeswoman for Mayor John Peyton, said the Jaguars have informed the mayor that they're optimistic they'll have a deal done by the start of the season, although the team hasn't presented the name of any proposed buyer.

"We think the timing is great for everybody, because we'd rather have it done sooner than later," Wiles said.

A deal would give the Jaguars, a small-market team that doesn't have the revenue streams of the National Football League's big-market teams, an infusion of cash they don't have to share with the rest of the league.

It also would be a boost for City Hall, which needs to fill funding gaps in next year's budget.

Prescott said some of the companies involved in the negotiations have a presence in Jacksonville, although their corporate headquarters are out of town.

The deal with Alltel for naming rights of the stadium expired after the 2006 season and wasn't renewed. The Jaguars hired a Baltimore firm, Team Services Inc., to help find a buyer.

Ticket sales for the 2007 season are behind the pace of 2006, and the team will begin a marketing campaign in July. Prescott said he is optimistic the team will eventually sell all of its nonpremium seats, which would rule out television blackouts. He said group sales and game-day sales should help, because more than a fourth of last year's season-ticket holders didn't renew.

Prescott said he's disappointed that the team has sold only 9,500 of its 11,200 club seats, which is about 300 tickets slower than last year's pace, when they sold more than 10,000.

Although selling the premium seats doesn't affect television blackouts, they're critical to the team's bottom line because revenue from those seats isn't shared with other teams.

"The key ingredient for us in terms of local revenue is the club seats," Prescott said.

Prescott said the team lost money last year for the third time this decade. He said the Jaguars' main goal is to break even to remain competitive for top players.

Prescott said the team currently is in solid financial shape, but the next problem will likely come in 2010 and 2011, when new stadiums in Dallas and New York will be completed. Those stadiums will create new revenue streams for the large-market teams and what Prescott called a "significant increase in the salary cap." The Jaguars won't share in the revenue those stadiums produce.

Another key date for the team is November 2008, when owners will decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, which would make 2009 the last year for the current salary cap system.

Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver has said the deal the owners agreed upon a year ago, which gave the players almost 60 percent of the gross revenue, is "unsustainable" in the long run.

The labor agreement forced the Jaguars to dismantle their broadcasting department because the players didn't have to share any of the expenses. They're now looking for a deal in which local stations would bear the expense of producing shows, but they haven't reached a deal for the upcoming season.

Prescott also said the Jaguars have put their search for new minority investors on hold until the end of the season. They have hired a New York investment firm, Galatioto Sports Partners, to help them find new investors so they could reduce their $110 million debt.

"In light of the current environment with rising interest rates, we're not actively looking right now," Prescott said.

Weaver has rejected all overtures to sell a majority interest in the team.